[Tlhingan-hol] Klingon Word of the Day: puch

[Lieven Litaer]

Am 30.04.2012 17:59, schrieb Felix Malmenbeck:
> Ah, the culture clash:

That's interesting, indeed.

In German, these words are difficult to translate, because both the 
{puch} and the {puchpa'} are called "Toilette". :-)

This leads to problems for germans learning french:

I've experienced, that in french, the word for {puchpa'} is always in 
plural. You have to ask "where are the toilets?". I remember a german 
student asking "Do you have a bathroom?" (vous avez une toilette?) And 
the answer was "Yes, we even have more than one."

In German it's no problem to say that somebody is "at the Toilette", but 
it is not the polite way to say what they do there. Children would say 
it, though. Many people do avoid the word anyway, saying "I go wash my 
hands" or the like.

By the way, it took me a while to understand how american appartments 
can have 1 and 1/2 bathrooms!  :-)

Lieven.